Apple Music was launched yesterday, and I just want to share some very quick thoughts about it. This is not in-depth, it’s just a few things I liked, and a few things that I didn’t.

Things I liked

• Availability: The best thing about this is, obviously, that it’s available in Lebanon officially. Goodbye, VPNs and Spotify.
• Integration: I like the fact that it’s integrated in the music app. It seemed new at first, but I’m very quickly getting used to the new UI.
• Siri: “Hey Siri, play some Sufjan Stevens”. So cool. I can literally just order Siri to play any song I can think of, and it will play.
• No Beats 1: The apparently innovative “worldwide” radio station is, well, not worldwide. Not available in Lebanon.
• Lacking music library: I’ll see how much of a problem this is as I search for more music, but not everything I’ve tried to find has been found. The library is lacking, especially with indie music (Barely any Jamie xx for example 😢), and I think this is also a problem due to being in Lebanon.
• Battery: I’m not entirely sure yet, but it seems like Apple Music is kind of a battery hog. Yikes.

Connect: This seems interesting. I’ve been checking what some artists are sharing, and this could become as addictive as Instagram.

Things I didn’t like

It should be stated that Apple Music is just $5/month here. I’ll be using Apple Music more and more in the coming three months, and then I’ll make my decision on whether or not I’ll keep using it. Being one of the only officially supported streaming services here, however, my bet is I will.